Heading West

Roy was searching for a new life.  He had left some, shall we say, unsavory details of his past back in North Carolina, and he was ready to move on. With Merle Haggard blaring from his classic, turquoise Chevy dashboard, he had cruised along without any regret.  But as the miles grew between himself and the woman he had left behind, he begin to grow uncertain.

Indecisiveness overwhelmed him as the ponderosa pines in Colorado began to dot the landscape.  He had picked Katie up when she was hitchhiking along a similar landscape 15 years before.  She appeared suddenly, mirage-like, by the side of the road.  He had blinked his eyes hard.  This creature was not the usual fox roaming these foothills.  She had a woeful story of a bad boyfriend that he fell for hook, line, and sinker.  Of course, her long hair, the color of corn silk mixed with wheat, and green eyes didn't hurt any, he reckoned, as he recalled that fateful day.

He slowed his car at a small, roadside gas station, the kind that still sells grape-flavored Shasta and fruity-striped gum.  Could he really break free from that hell-fire siren?  Remember who she really is, a voice inside his head shouted.  Turns out his fair-headed hitchhiker was not some innocent from the plains of America, but actually a Southern she-cat by the name of Vera!  And now ol' Vera was tellin' a new man that HE was the bad boyfriend!  With that reminder, Roy sucked hard on his white and red paper straw, pulling out the last dredges of syrupy, grape carbonation from his cup and letting them fly.  His cajones grew a size, in a different way than when he had thought of Vera in the past, and he eyed the road ahead.

He made up his mind--he was heading west.

12" x 16"